I was walk­ing through the hall­way of my new dor­mi­tory. I had just seen my room and I wanted to check out the com­mon areas. I saw a girl com­ing, push­ing a cart awk­wardly in front of her. Just as she reached me, the wheels caught on the spot where the car­pet and wood floor came together. I instinc­tively offered to help and guided the front wheels onto the wooden sec­tion of floor. I con­tin­ued along with her, guid­ing the front of her cart to her room as we chat­ted about our majors. She was in her sec­ond year as an art stu­dent at the school. That caught my atten­tion and imme­di­ately made me curi­ous as to what was under the tarp on her cart. I helped her maneu­ver the cart into her room, secretly hop­ing she would remove the tarp so I could see what was under­neath. I wasn’t dis­ap­pointed.

When she removed the tarp, I saw the eyes of an angel look­ing up at me. It was pos­si­bly one of the most beau­ti­ful carved stat­ues I had ever seen. Seem­ingly part angel, part Madonna, her arms reached out as if to embrace any­one who approached. “No won­der the cart was so heavy and awk­ward!” I thought just as the girl lifted the Angel Madonna effort­lessly off the heavy cart and placed her on the floor. I helped her move the cart to the side of the room, keep­ing my eyes on this carved won­der that had almost no weight. The girl noticed my expres­sion and lifted the statue again, hand­ing it to me. She was light as a feather and smooth to the touch. Not cold stone, as I had expected, nor squeaky bright plas­tic, but some mate­r­ial I have never seen or felt before. I cra­dled the Angel Madonna in my arms, turn­ing her this way and that, study­ing the intri­cate carv­ing and search­ing unsuc­cess­fully for tell-tale lines of a pour mold. My jeweler’s instinct kicked in, want­ing to know what she could be made of. “What is this mate­r­ial?” I asked, touch­ing the statue as if I were caress­ing her.

“It’s a new mate­r­ial we’re work­ing with in the art depart­ment here at the school. It’s exper­i­men­tal so I’m lucky to get to try it out. Yes, there’s a mold, but there’s no need for 2 parts, so there will never be a line. Isn’t it amaz­ing?” I nod­ded and handed Angel Madonna (as I had come to call her) back to the artist.

“Now I wish I’d cho­sen art as a major instead of lit­er­a­ture,” I joked. The artist led me around her room­mates’ beds to a plas­ter mold the size of her statue. Lift­ing the top off, she placed the statue back inside and laid the mold down on its side. My eyes widened in amaze­ment and almost hor­ror as the mold, statue inside, col­lapsed in on itself, not crum­bling as plas­ter would, but almost melt­ing back into the cav­ity of the mold itself. All that remained was a faint out­line of the statue’s shape — the intri­cately carved details gone for­ever.

“It’s so exper­i­men­tal, we’re not allowed to keep our work after it’s been com­pleted and graded,” the artist explained. While we were talk­ing, her room­mates entered the room, talk­ing and laugh­ing with each other. Four girls shared each room and I hoped to have girls as friendly as this in my dorm also. We were hav­ing such a good time, I almost didn’t even notice the phone ring­ing until one of the room­mates held it out to my artist friend say­ing “It’s for you.” She dove across her bed to take the phone and we laughed qui­etly that she was expect­ing a call from a boyfriend back home. Her expres­sion and tone changed how­ever when she heard the voice on the other end. “No I am NOT com­ing home!” she shouted into the receiver. The dark-haired room­mate stand­ing near­est to me explained, “It’s her sis­ter. She’ll be on the phone for a while.”

“It’s ok. I really should be get­ting back to my room,” I said as I started to walk back around the beds and suit­cases still out as the girls hadn’t all unpacked yet. The other two room­mates were stand­ing in my path to the door, pass­ing clothes back and forth to each other to try on. Not want­ing to inter­rupt them, I saw another door behind me, slightly open. I asked the dark-haired room­mate, “Where does that door go? Will it get me back out into the hall­way?”

“I don’t know,” she replied. “We’ve never been able to unlock it before…” Her voice trailed off as she saw the door stand­ing open. “Let’s go find out!” she exclaimed and we eagerly went through, being care­ful that it didn’t lock behind us again.

We found our­selves in an unfa­mil­iar com­mon area. Know­ing the girl with me was a 2nd year stu­dent, I asked if she’d been here before or rec­og­nized any of the stu­dents sit­ting around on the green leather couches chat­ting and laugh­ing with each other. She shook her head as she kept her eye on one of the cute boys sit­ting on the arm of the couch. I smiled and nod­ded my good-bye to her as some­thing else caught my eye. I eagerly hur­ried to what appeared to be an indoor bazaar.

Leav­ing the dorm-style com­mon area, I was now stand­ing in front of rows of ven­dors hawk­ing their hand­made goods. Each ven­dor was pleased to speak with me, and more than one com­mented that few peo­ple find their way to their lit­tle bizarre bazaar. Being indoors, tents were not needed, but many used them to set their space and style apart from oth­ers around them. The smell of home­made pies blended with incense and hand-dipped can­dles. I closed my eyes and could almost feel the soft, green grass of Scar­bor­ough Faire beneath my feet. Open­ing my eyes again, I made my way hap­pily down row after row. One gen­tle­man, dressed in Gypsy attire, called me over to his multi-colored tent. “You’ll never find finer tables than mine!” he touted. “And they’re even more spe­cial because they’re mag­i­cal,” he added with a glint in his eye.

I stepped inside the tent to see fine hard­wood fur­ni­ture, and just as he promised, beau­ti­ful hand­made din­ing tables, set with an equally ele­gant table set­ting, food, linens, drink and all. I touched the smooth, unstained wood, admir­ing how his work brought out the beauty of the wood itself.

“Have you ever spilled any­thing off a table before?” he asked me.

Feel­ing as though he knew me a lit­tle too well, I blushed and nod­ded.

“Never again!” the Gypsy pro­claimed. “Watch this!” He quickly knocked over a full wine glass on one of the tables. The table itself sprung to life before my eyes, tilt­ing this way and that to keep the wine from spilling out of the glass. Once the glass was upright on the table again, it set­tled back, hav­ing never moved a sin­gle dish or other wine glass out of place.

I reached out and pulled one of the place­mats, attempt­ing to pull it and the plates along with it off the table. Again, the table sprung into action, tilt­ing and lean­ing all the way on its side to catch the way­ward plates before they fell. I was cer­tain that the full wine glasses would surely spill out with the table at a 90 degree angle to the floor this way, but each indi­vid­ual board tilted back on their own, almost instinc­tively keep­ing the glasses upright. I watched in stunned silence as the table — and each of the boards — slowly righted itself once again, all of the food and drinks still in place.

Know­ing I could never afford such a table, I thanked the kind Gypsy and went out of his tent just as he enticed another shop­per in to see the show. I turned and watched for a bit while he climbed onto the table and sat in the cen­ter, knock­ing more wine glasses and plates as he did. I laughed, see­ing the table twist­ing and turn­ing again, this time also keep­ing the man him­self from falling off.

I con­tin­ued along my adven­ture in the bazaar, round­ing another tented cor­ner where my senses were struck with another famil­iar scent. Turkey legs and sausage on a stick! My stom­ach grum­bled even as I hur­ried for­ward to buy a favorite Faire food. I hap­pily smoth­ered my sausage on a stick with mus­tard, know­ing much of it would end up on my shirt. I smiled to myself as I won­dered how the table might stop food from spilling onto clothes as well. I decided to go back and speak to the Gypsy again to see if any of his nap­kins pos­sessed the same mag­i­cal qual­i­ties as his tables.

Going back around the cor­ner again, I was sud­denly sur­rounded by dozens of ven­dors. “Where did you get that food?” they asked. “We’ve been here so long with­out food. We’re starv­ing!” That was when I real­ized that even the pies I had smelled ear­lier were on the oppo­site aisle, with a cur­tain between the food ven­dors and the hand­made shop­keep­ers.

I showed the hun­gry shop­keep­ers that you could get to the food aisle by round­ing the tent at the far end. I felt like Moses lead­ing the peo­ple to the promised land (or pos­si­bly the Pied Piper?) as I guided my group of hun­gry shop­keep­ers to the food stands with turkey legs, sausage on a stick, baked pota­toes, spiced ham, corn on the cob and other great foods. I couldn’t help notic­ing that each of them bought the same thing I had — sausage on a stick, smoth­ered in mus­tard. Smil­ing, I led my group back to the other end of the food aisle to get some home­made pie.…